-- Sur American Gold Corporation: Corporate Update-Focus on Achieving Commercial --
Gold Production
Business Editors
VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 29, 2004--Sur
American Gold Corporation (TSX VENTURE:SUR) is pleased to provide this
corporate update on its activities and strategy and in particular its
plans for project development at its Comval gold and copper-gold and
T'Boli gold-silver projects, Philippines.
KEY STATEMENT
"SUR'S principal goal is to develop its projects to commercial
production as soon as practicable and then to use the free cash
generated to advance its exploration and expand its operations whilst
enhancing shareholder value and minimizing share dilution."
Developing precious metal projects in developing countries such as
the Philippines requires a steady, systematic step by step approach.
The Company acknowledges that developing and maintaining excellent
relationships with all levels of government with the strong support of
the local community is the most important factor in the successful
transition from exploration to production.
In this regard the Company is very pleased to report that since
exploration commenced in June 2003 it has steadily built an operation
that, in addition to other community activities has provided
continuous opportunities for more than 150 people, donated to a wide
variety of community projects and supported the local Indigenous
Community in livelihood projects. Recently the Company has extended
support assistance to a local Indigenous teacher to teach local
Indigenous children.
SUR believes therefore that it is building a solid community
foundation to its planned project development. This important strategy
may neither be completely understood nor appreciated by some
investors. To progress its projects to mining operations without
unnecessary delays SUR believes that this strategy is, however
essential. While it may occasionally result in some programs
proceeding at a slower pace compared to other countries, the
objectives are nonetheless achieved.
COMVAL GOLD PROJECT, COMPOSTELA VALLEY
BULK METALLURGICAL TESTING
The Company during late 2003-early 2004 identified many high grade
gold bearing veins and wide areas of low-medium grade stockwork gold
mineralization (small veins, veinlets and microveinlets all occurring
together).
Accordingly a corporate decision was made in early 2004 to
undertake a Bulk Metallurgical Testing ("BMT") Program as an essential
part of its exploration and evaluation activities. The activity
involves mining along many of these larger veins in order to better
understand the nature of these gold structures and also to process the
bulk mineralization to ascertain the metallurgical characteristics of
as many of the veins and low-medium grade stockwork areas as possible.
Understanding the metallurgy is a key component of any good
feasibility study. Good metallurgy often makes the difference between
an economic and sub economic project.
As previously reported SUR has established that the Batoto gold
mineralization can be processed by standard CIP methods with likely
high (94%) average recoveries with low reagent consumption and high
recovery times. It is now in the process of determining whether the
mineralization can be processed by the low cost heap leaching method.
The goal for the Company in 2005 is to define a sufficient tonnage
of mineralization through drilling to enable the Company to commence a
full feasibility study to determine the appropriate mining and
processing strategy.
Assuming sufficient resources are defined it could reasonably be
expected that an initial operation would treat higher than average
grade mineralization for 1-3 years and this would be followed by
further expansions over a period of time treating lower grades until
the optimum processing rate and grade is reached. This approach is
consistent with the need to proceed with the participation of the
community and all other levels of government in the decision making
process.
GRADIENT ARRAY GEOPHYSICAL SURVEY
In addition to the Bulk Metallurgical Testing Program, SUR has
undertaken more than 120 line km of a gradient array IP geophysical
survey. The final reports arising from this survey are now being
evaluated by the Company-in particular the survey data on initial
drilling locations.
It is readily apparent from the work conducted to date that Batoto
is a huge porphyry-related gold system covering more than 8 sq km and
the decision about where to start drilling in order to define higher
than average gold grades is a major decision for the company.
Even though the Company is well financed ($2,500,000 in cash) it
does not have the large financial resources necessary to embark upon
large drilling programs to define the full extent of the Batoto gold
system at this time. Instead the initial drilling program to be
conducted in early 2005 will involve several thousand metres in and
around the Clark area of Batoto where extensive sampling and tunneling
has already outlined widespread gold mineralization grading between
1-3 g/t gold.
COMVAL COPPER-GOLD PROJECT
Early in 2004 SUR Company undertook an initial exploration program
at the Tagpura copper-gold project and was highly successful in
outlining the presence of high grade massive sulphide copper-gold
zones grading up to 2.8% copper and 1.4 g/t gold over a width of 60
metres and this program work also resulted in the discovery of wide
(up to 65 metres) zones of gold mineralization adjacent to the
copper-gold zones which are more than 1g/t gold.
T'BOLI GOLD-SILVER PROJECT
SUR, over the past 8 months has undertaken necessary
infrastructure projects including main access tunnel rehabilitation,
preparing the tunnel portal area for necessary electrical and office
installation and has recently purchased a small CIP plant for the
planned treatment of typical T'Boli mineralization.
Initial deliveries of mineralization to this plant is scheduled
for January 2005.
In addition the Company's exploration team has been conducting
tunnel mapping and sampling as well as trenching over many areas of
the deposit in order to confirm previous grades and to determine the
bulk mining potential in western areas of the deposit.
Sur American Gold Corporation trades on the TSX Venture Exchange
(Canada) with trading symbol SUR-V.
On behalf of the board of directors
J. Rennie Blair, President
The TSX Venture Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the
contents of this news release.
--30--SH/na*
CONTACT: Sur American Gold Corporation
J. Rennie Blair
President
(604) 601-8270
Fax: (604) 904-8957
Email suramerican@telus.net
OR
Renmark Financial Communications
Neil Murray-Lyon
(514) 939-3989
OR
Renmark Financial Communications
Franca Filippone
(514) 939-3989
